Many locks can be quickly opened: experts gathered in the Czech Republic to demonstrate how

By Marc Tobias

This is a four-part series on how the security of locks can be quickly circumvented with simple to sophisticated tools produced for locksmiths and government agencies. There is a specialized group of security experts, tool designers, and manufacturers that offer some incredibly well-engineered, clever, and often-sophisticated devices to open just about anything imaginable from the highest security cylinders to safes and even the most expensive cars.

Part I: Opening pin tumbler locks in seconds with Electro-picks

I just returned from Karlovy Vary, an ancient city about eighty miles west of Prague. It is world-famous for its luxurious Spas and its International Film Festival. Movies often portray government agents, spies, and thieves opening locks and safes in seconds with ease and a lack of technical detail that is difficult to show in film. The gathering I attended of the Czech Locksmith Federation LockFest 2016 saw demonstrations of what is portrayed in films. The difference was that these were real lock picking and safe cracking tools by real experts, not actors.